[Nigel Mace]

I'm painfully aware that this thread is supposed to be for squibs in verse on current affairs - but you've trawled (trolled?) for facts - so I'll provide some.
Let's get my 'residency' clear, John. I'm a life-long domiciled Scot, lucky enough to live most summers in my Italian home, where I am a 'visitor' not a 'resident'.
Also for the sake of our American, and other, readers, your personal experience of Scotland would seem rather more remote, as, I understand, you're a childhood Edinburgh resident, long based in Kent in south-east England - either a Kentish man or a man of Kent, a distinction the terms of which I can never reliably remember.

A few facts - not 'alt.' ones - to assist you.
There are no, conventionally recognised or gathered, reliable 'stats' on Scotland's 'exports' to the UK - or the rest of the UK's to Scotland - a fairly barmy notion in a single state in any case. The reasons are pretty glaringly obvious, e.g. as UK stats are currently gathered, 'n' billions of Scotland's whisky exports pass through non-Scottish ports such as Felixstowe, where they are registered, for any attempt at such an estimation, as English exports. However, such 'guesstimates' as do exist suggest that Scotland's 'exports' to rUK are c. £48-55.5 bn. and the rUK's 'exports' to Scotland are c. £56-62.5bn.
After independence this trade would continue - we are both markets for each other's goods and services. The difference would be that rUK would have to meet the same trade deal standards with Scotland as it would with the rest of the EU. From the outlook for the 'Brexit' negotiations, it is quite clear that those terms would favour the EU not the rUK - and Scotland could only profit from sharing the EU's terms.

Scotland's exports to the EU are currently estimated in official figures as £12.3bn and our exports to the rest of the world as £16.4bn. (Note also that the Felixstowe example above indicates that these figures are significant under-estimates.) Our growth in exports (i.e. real exports to EU and World) has been 3.6% in the last year, with the US, Holland, France, Germany and Norway our biggest markets. Our growth is concentrated in the EU and single market countries.

Spain has no objections to our independence, as the Spanish Foreign Minister made clear twice in the aftermath of the 'Brexit' vote, saying he expected England to return soon to its 16th century borders. The only Spanish concern is with Catalonia because there is no constitutionally legally recognised path to secession from the Spanish state. Rajoy will never risk losing access to our fishing grounds as his own political base is in Galicia which depends on its fishing industry.

We cannot join the Euro - and have no intention of asking. To join, among other matters, a country has to have been a member of the ERM for at least two consecutive years. We are not and so cannot join the Euro - literally, no chance.

The campaign for Indyref2 hasn't even started, John, and YES already stands, at the lowest current estimate, at 46%. Last time we went from 27% to 45%. I have no doubts what will happen this time - and this time, for remarkably conservative - with a small, non-party 'c' - reasons. Actually the same sort of reasons as made merchants and their moneied landed backers wangle the Treaty of Union in 1707.
In 1707, the Union, warts and all, offered the only way for Scotland to break into world-wide colonial trade and prosperity.
In - probably 2018 - Independence within the EU, also warts and all, will offer the only way to preserve Scotland's membership of the world's biggest integrated market and all the trade agreements shared by its members, who are the biggest trading block in the world. You might like to remember that Scotland's majority for EU membership in the June referendum was a whopping 24%.
Scots are certainly not Conservatives - but we are canny, and we can tell an economic and trading no-brainer when we see one. YES will win and win comfortably.

Now them's real facts. I leave the 'alt.' kind to the unpleasant fantasy world of the isolated Brexitanians and the Trumpers, who will have seen May & Co. coming from far off - and with not too much to offer.

[John Whitworth]

In 1707... lawks a mussy

I have visited Edinburgh many times. But it's true I like it here better. The Scots do go on, and at such length. As we see.

If you don't join the Euro you can't join the EU.

[Nigel Mace]

Oh, John, do give the nonsense a rest. We won't be joining the EU. Unlike you, we won't have left.

[RCL]

The Day of Wine and Roses Approaches!

Venusian Valentines?
or
Venomous Valentines?

I’m big on the wine. Do you have any of either V flavor, or something in between, that you would like to share? If you do, it’s legal to post them here, unless Humpty Trumpty signs a forbidding executive order while burning the constitution. I’m thinking about one that starts, “How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.” Or a pretty version. Welcome to it.

[Nigel Mace]

Well, Ralph (I think that's correct and if not, apologies), you could have one I penned in the midst of the Iraq war, the root of so much of what is wrong today. It was to someone, on the destestation of whom John and I can actually agree - the odious Blair. Not a very testing target but still...

FOR TONY

How do I loathe you? let me count the ways.
I loathe you to the depth and breadth and height
Your planes can reach, in flight, time out of sight,
To end poor beings just to save your face.
I loathe you to the level of each day’s
Most anguished blaze, by sun or Press flashlight.
I loathe you freely, as my undimmed right;
I loathe you purely, as I’d douse false praise;
I loathe you with old passion put to use
In my new griefs, and with my Party’s faith;
I loathe you with disgust I’ll never loose
On other men, - I loathe you with my all -
Scorn, tears, rage, all my life - and, when we choose,
I shall but loathe you better when you fall.

(With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

[Brian Allgar]

Nigel, in the light of your long-running altercation, I think we can agree about a certain member, without naming names, that:

xxPoetically, he's someone we adore;
xxPolitically . . . I'd better say no more.

[John Whitworth]

Nigel old fruit, yes you will, as the rest of the EU agree. You will have to re-apply.

Brian, do you refer to me? Thank you for your praise of my verse. It is reciprocated. As to the other, I can't help being right. Sorry.

[Nigel Mace]

I don't know where you get your 'news' John, but I'd change your supplier. You have it exactly and precisely wrong.

Ms Jacqueline Minor, the chief representative for the European Commission, has said this week, in answer to a question about Scotland's position if it voted for independence after the UK had left the EU (which we are clearly not going to do - we will be voting before that happens), that "there would be no reason why it would not be accepted" - an intervention which even the rabidly anti-Independence newspaper The Scotsman headlined. In addition, of course, there have been repeated statements from Guy Verhofstadt, the chief negotiator of the European Parliament in the 'Brexit' process, that "of course, Scotland should stay in the EU" where we would be "welcome". We are simply not going to 'leave', John. As your 'Brexit' friends would say - get used to it.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

As to the other, I can't help being right. Sorry.

I would say that you can't help being John. Sorry.

In any case, you can't possibly be right, since our opinions are diametrically opposed, and I am never wrong.

[Roger Slater]

What you need is someone to break the tie. Let me help. Brian wins! Sorry, John, but we have some nice parting gifts.